Installing MySQL

In order to explore Java Persistence, we need to install and configure a database server, and MySQL is a logical choice, being widely adopted and lightweight.

The software is available to several operating systems: Microsoft Windows, Debian, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, Red Hat, Solaris, Mac OS X, and so on.

Installing on Linux using a package manager

If you are using a Linux distribution such as Ubuntu or Red Hat, most likely you already have the software available, you just need to install it with a command like this (you may want to update your repositories and packages to be sure that your system is up-to-date):

sudo apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client

Note

The stable version at the time of writing is 5.5.27, but most likely the repositories have older versions, for instance, 5.1 on Ubuntu 11. This version is pretty much enough to run the code we're going to explore throughout the book, so you can go ahead and install it.

The system is going to suggest a lot of other...